SASS & THE CITY: Silliness rules

A rising Republican star and early favorite for the 2016 presidential election appears to have a battle with the bottle.

The water bottle, that is.

A few weeks ago, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., caused a media sensation when he paused during his live network rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address to quench his thirst.

Rubio didn't dash out of the studio, run into Central Park, jump headlong into the Bethesda Fountain and suck all the water out. He didn't hold up a liquor store and down a fifth of Jim Beam. And last time I looked, he hadn't opened a vein in Andrea Mitchell's neck to drink her blood.

He reached for a bottle of water and took a sip.

A sip, it seems, that was heard 'round the world.

Big whoop.

Rubio's momentary break from droning conservative rhetoric was actually the high point of the speech for me. Yet it stirred up a whirlwind of attention, including a frenzy of news reports, media analysis, social networking and late-night comedy jokes. In the hour following the water-bottle incident, tweets about Rubio's slurp averaged 9,200 per minute.

Really. Is this all we have got?

Look around us. Our nation is armed to the teeth, and mass murder is becoming happenstance. The economy is still not cool. Jillions of people remain unemployed, the Chinese military hacked Apple, gas prices are going back up yet again, and Kourtney Kardashian is still fighting with her boyfriend. There are real problems in the world! Who cares if a guy has a case of dry mouth during a television speech?

To be fair to those losing their marbles over America's latest "Watergate," Rubio didn't just reach for the bottle of water. He pretty much lunged for it. He hit it like Lindsay Lohan going for a swag bag. Greg Louganis, on his best day, couldn't have gotten himself to the water faster than Rubio did that night.

Like any good politician, Rubio made the best of the situation, and promptly monetized his media attention, producing branded Rubio water bottles, selling them at $25 and raising over a hundred grand for his political action committee.

But the whole silly hubbub makes me wonder why America is so obsessed with the frivolous minutia that occurs in our world.